Russian comedians commonly known as Vovan and Lexus, played a prank on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In a telephone conversation, they posed as a senior African official with whom Meloni felt comfortable enough to make certain revelations that she might not have otherwise in a public setting.
Despite saying otherwise in Parliament and making public statements, Meloni is heard saying in the 13-minute audio of the call that there is “a lot of fatigue” on all sides regarding the conflict in Ukraine.
Although released online on November 1 by Vovan and Lexus, the call, with what she believed was a senior African Union official, dates to September 18, the day before the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Her office later admitted that she “had been deceived.”
When asked by the prankers about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Meloni responded in English and said: “I see that there is a lot of fatigue, I have to say the truth from all the sides. We (are) near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out.”
“The problem is to find a way out which can be acceptable for both without destroying the international law,” she added.
The situation generated strong criticism and even concern from politicians in Italy. This is the case of former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who was in office between 2018 and 2021. For him, the telephone conversation is a “failure on a global scale” and revealed that “government security protocols can be circumvented and hacked” very quickly.
Despite this, the former prime minister said on social media that the content of the conversation was more disturbing than that.
“What is even more unacceptable is to discover that our Prime Minister is speaking about the conflict [in Ukraine] in a manner completely opposite to that which she has recently used in Parliament. She provides a completely different description of the conflict from that which she presents to Italians, public opinion, and people’s representatives. She recognizes that she sees no other way out other than negotiations and that this is the only solution to a conflict that could last for years,” he said.
According to Giuseppe Conte, the current prime minister revealed that she never told Italians about the conflict, which has increasingly lost support from the West in the face of corruption and the failed summer counteroffensive.
“She continues to send weapons to Ukraine and promote this military escalation endlessly, but she realizes the need to find a solution through negotiations that protect the interests of both parties. However, above all, she admits that she still cannot find the courage to present a different position for Italy […] This cowardice costs the Italians, the Europeans, but, above all, the victims, whose number, unfortunately, continues to grow,” wrote the politician, who leads the opposition 5 Star Movement.
Yet, despite the criticism from Conte, Lexus was rather quite complementary towards Meloni.
“Unfortunately, unlike her, many European politicians behave like some kind of programmed robot and express points of view that are only voiced in their own circles,” he told Reuters.
Without mentioning the audio clip directly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on October 1 that Europe was a continent of “cooperation, not disagreements.”
“I am confident that Ukraine will make our Europe stronger than ever, and we are working actively to remove any obstacles to our accession to the European Union. “I am also confident that no matter how events unfold in the world, among our partners in the United States and elsewhere, unity will prevail. Unity, not division. Unity, not calls for isolation,” he added.
In a much more direct manner, Mikhail Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, claimed on X (formerly Twitter) that European fatigue and willingness to negotiate a ceasefire was “absolute propaganda fiction promoted only by authoritarian regimes similar to the Russian one.”
This is a ludicrous claim since Meloni’s statements and many of her European colleagues are clear and decisive.
Yet, the question must be asked of why Italy continues to pledge full support to Ukraine, both military and financial, for as long as the conflict lasts. Until September, Italy has already sent more than €1 billion, which cannot account for how the amount was spent, and at a time when a migration crisis grips the Mediterranean country.
In the call, Meloni revealed, “I have got some ideas about how to manage this situation, but I am waiting for the right moment to put on the table these ideas that I have got.” Since the call on September 18, she has yet to reveal “how to manage this situation” or what that “right moment” will be.
